Skipping Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

quickly resolved. A stray dog, one from another street, a call from Vic Frohmeyer, and Animal Control was on the spot. A stray kid, one with hair andtattoos and the leery look of a delinquent, and Frohmeyer would have the police poking him in the chest and asking questions.
    A hospital stay on Hemlock, and the Frohmeyers arranged visitation and food and even lawn care. A death on Hemlock, and they organized flowers for the funeral and visits to the cemetery. A neighbor in need could call the Frohmeyers for anything.
    The Frostys had been Vic’s idea, though he’d seen it in a suburb of Evanston and thus couldn’t take full credit. The same Frosty on every Hemlock roof, an eight-foot Frosty with a goofy smile around a corncob pipe and a black top hat and thick rolls around the middle, all made to glow a brilliant white by a two-hundred-watt bulb screwed into a cavity somewhere near Frosty’s colon. The Hemlock Frostys had made their debut six years earlier and were a smashing success—twenty-one houses on one side, twenty-one on the other, the street lined with two perfect rows of Frostys, forty feet up. A color photo with a cute story ran on the front page. Two television news crews had done Live! reports.
    The next year, Stanton Street to the south and Ackerman Street to the north had jumped inwith Rudolphs and silver bells, respectively, and a committee from Parks and Rec, at Frohmeyer’s quiet urging, began giving neighborhood awards for Christmas decorations.
    Two years earlier disaster struck when a windstorm sent most of the Frostys airborne into the next precinct. Frohmeyer rallied the neighbors though, and last year a new, slightly shorter version of Frosty decorated Hemlock. Only two houses had not participated.
    Each year, Frohmeyer decided the date on which to resurrect the Frostys, and after hearing the rumors about Krank and his cruise he decided to do it immediately. After dinner, he typed a short memo to his neighbors, something he did at least twice a month, ran forty-one copies, and dispatched his six children to hand-deliver them to every house on Hemlock. It read: “Neighbor—Weather tomorrow should be clear, an excellent time to bring Frosty back to life—Call Marty or Judd or myself if you need assistance—Vic Frohmeyer.”
    Luther took the memo from a smiling kid.
    “Who is it?” Nora called from the kitchen.
    “Frohmeyer.”
    “What’s it about?”
    “Frosty.”
    She walked slowly into the living room, where Luther was holding the half-sheet of paper as if it were a summons to jury duty. They gave each other a fearful look, and very slowly Luther began shaking his head.
    “You have to do it,” she said.
    “No, I do not,” he said, very firmly, his temper rising with each word. “I certainly do not. I will not be told by Vic Frohmeyer that I have to decorate my house for Christmas.”
    “It’s just Frosty.”
    “No, it is much more.”
    “What?”
    “It’s the principle of it, Nora. Don’t you understand? We can forget about Christmas if we damned well choose, and—”
    “Don’t swear, Luther.”
    “And no one, not even Vic Frohmeyer, can stop us.” Louder. “I will not be forced into doing this!” He was pointing to the ceiling with one hand and waving the memo with the other. Nora retreated to the kitchen.

      Five      
    A Hemlock Frosty came in four sections—a wide round base, a slightly smaller snowball that wedged into the base, then a trunk, then the head with the face and hat. Each section could be stuffed into the next larger one, so that storage for the other eleven months of the year was not too demanding. At a cost of $82.99, plus shipping, everyone packed away their Frostys with care.
    And they unpacked them with great delight. Throughout the afternoon sections of Frostys could be seen inside most garages along Hemlockas the snowmen were dusted off and checked for parts. Then they were put together, built just like a real snowman, section on